INTRODUCTION
Less than 500 hours remain until the election of the next President of the United States. While the national attention is aimed at that election not nearly enough of us have considered the importance of down-ballot elections. Yet, these down-ballot elections will have as much (if not more) personal consequence in our own states, cities, and towns than the next occupant of the Oval Office. Christians blessed with the freedom to vote in elections must consider the impact of the lesser magistrates; those layers of government standing between the citizenry and the upper tiers of the Federal authorities. In other words, your vote for governors, state senators, school board members, and sheriffs matters more than you realize.
A BIBLICAL EXAMPLE
The book of Exodus introduces us to a tyrannical oppressor: Pharoah, who had enslaved Israel and was now coercing Hebrew midwives to murder the male children upon birth. (Ex. 1:8-16) In other words, the king overreached. God never granted him the right to murder. And he sought to coerce a lesser authority, the midwives.
But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. (Ex. 1:17)
In defying the edict of the king, the midwives obeyed a higher authority. The only way to obey God was to disobey and defy Pharoah, and God “dealt well with the midwives.” (Ex. 1:20) Here we have a Biblical example of what Christians in the Reformed tradition have classically called the doctrine of the lesser magistrates. God has placed layers of governmental authority between the king and the citizen in order to prevent tyrannical overreach on the one hand and lawless revolution on the other.
THE DUTY OF LESSER MAGISTRATES
Matthew Trewhella summarizes the duty of the lesser magistrates:
The primary duty of the lesser magistrates regarding the doctrine of the lesser magistrates is threefold. First, they are to oppose and resist any laws or edicts from the higher authority that contravene the law or Word of God. Second, they are to protect the person, liberty, and property of those who reside within their jurisdiction from any unjust or immoral laws or actions by the higher authority. Third, they are not to implement any laws or decrees made by the higher authority that violate the Constitution, and if necessary, resist them… They cannot hide behind the excuse “I’m just doing my job” or “I’m just following the law of the land” as an attempt to escape their duty. (Trewhella, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, p. 15)
If the lesser magistrates fail in these duties there are only two possible outcomes: either the people submit to ungodly and tyrannical oppression, or the people rise up in revolt. Christians are called by God to submit to governing authorities as a general rule. We are not to be scofflaws. We pray for “kings and all those in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (1 Tim. 2:2)
A MORE RECENT EXAMPLE
2020 was a year of unveiling, a year of the Lord exposing corruption, lies, and tyranny in our nation. I don’t know of any other way to put it. During the first few weeks of March of that year, there was near unanimous agreement in policy and procedure from the Federal government all the way down to the local ombudsman. But, in the succeeding weeks and months, we watched a widening gap between the governance of some states and others. Our church, perched on the border of North & South Carolina, had a front-row seat to compare the tyrannical and draconian policies of Gov. Roy Cooper in NC compared with that of Gov. Henry McMaster in South Carolina. We saw abortion clinics and pot dispensaries across the nation remain open for business while churches were deemed “non-essential.”
If we learned nothing else from 2020, we ought to have learned that governors matter. Mayors matter. Sheriffs matter. The lesser magistrates who honored the Lord over all, and respected the Constitutional rights of the citizenry had to choose between submission to Federal authorities and fulfilling their oaths of office. Some caved, citing they were only doing their job, thus proving they did not know what their job was in the first place. The job of the lesser magistrate is not to serve as an apparatchik for the king.
VOTING FOR THE LESSER MAGISTRATES
Who will be allowed to enter your daughter’s public bathrooms? Will your schoolchildren be required to lie about someone’s preferred pronouns? Can your pastor refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples, or a baker conscientiously refuse to make a cake for the wedding? Will Sheriffs comply with ATF search and seizures or protect your Second Amendment rights? Will you have the choice to home-school your children, or will public education be mandatory? None of these are far-fetched scenarios from a George Orwell novel. They are all current event examples happening across our nation. Each of them will most likely not be decided by the President but rather by an assortment of local and state legislators, executives, and judges.
Where I live in South Carolina, this election will require me to cast 14 votes. I know that because I’ve already viewed a sample ballot. I am actively researching the down-ballot candidates so that I can enter the voting booth as an informed citizen. You must do the same. Do not spend all of your focus on the presidential election. Spend 30 minutes online, examining a sample ballot, and visiting the websites of the various candidates who are up for election.
If you are a South Carolina resident, obtain a sample ballot at scvotes.gov
If you are a North Carolina resident, obtain a sample ballot at ncsbe.gov
Voting has consequences, both for good and evil. Christians must be engaged to vote at every level of government. To refuse engagement is to cede the direction of our nation, states, and towns to those who hate Christ. Brothers and sisters, this must not be so.